Methods for Providing Overdraft Protection for Post-Paid Communication Service Plans

ABSTRACT

Methods for adding minutes to a calling plan having a calling plan period. The methods including determining whether a threshold number of minutes have been reached during the calling plan period; and incrementally adding minutes to the calling plan when the threshold number of minutes has been reached. The cost per minute of the added minutes is less than the high-cost per minute rate normally associated with exceeding the threshold number of minutes during the calling plan period.

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates in general to a communication service planoverdraft protection, and in particular, to methods for adding overdraftdata blocks to a “post-paying” customer account to avoid incurring highcost overage fees.

2. Description of the Related Art

“Prepaid” wireless has been a major push in the Wireless world toattract customers who have no desire to be bound to a contract, or tothose who do not have established credit and/or have poor credit.Prepaid wireless customers may purchase a predetermined number ofminutes for use with their wireless telephone as the need arises. Thereare numerous advantages to entering into prepaid service contract. Forexample, the carrier is guaranteed that the account will always remaincurrent, and the pre-paying customer is guaranteed that she will not payoverage minutes because by paying beforehand, she can regulate usage andcosts of the wireless account.

Today's post-paying customer does not enjoy those same advantagesbecause traditionally, such features have not been available. Underexisting post-paying service plan contracts, it is not possible tobuy/add additional minutes beyond the allotted predetermined number ofminutes prescribed by the service plan. The allotted number of minutesis typically preselected by the post-paying customer at the time thewireless account is activated. Consequently, when a post-paying customerhas exhausted all of his or her minutes in the service plan, he or shemay not be notified and therefore would automatically be chargedadditional minutes at what typically is an increased per minute amount.As a result, a post-paying customer may receive a monthly statement inexcess of what she anticipated and accounted for in her monthly budget.

Customarily, telephone service plan contracts are established in advanceof use in one year increments. Various service plans can be selected bythe user when a new user account is established. The user generallyselects from among the various plans based on what the user anticipateshis or her average minute usage will be for each month. Whenanticipating average monthly usage, most users do not considersextraordinary usage that may be incurred in any given month, such as,going on vacation or being away from home for extended periods of time.

Various service plans have attempted to solve the problem of causingsubscribers to be charged overage minutes, such as allowing a user toaccumulate the unused portion of his minutes in any month, and have themrolled over onto the next month billing cycle, or any successive billingcycle thereafter. For example, CINGULAR WIRELESS ROLLOVER® calling planallows a customer to roll over the unused minutes from one month to thefollowing months billing cycle. Rolling over minutes is only helpfulwhen the subscriber has an excess number of minutes accumulated fromprevious months. This solution however does not solve the problem facedby the subscriber when there are not accumulated rollover minutesavailable and she is about to be charged overage minutes once all of heravailable minutes have been used.

Thus, there is a need to provide methods to regulate overage minuteswhen a user determines beforehand that she will occasionally go beyondthe allotted number of minutes set forth in the service plan contract inany given month.

SUMMARY

The present invention addresses the shortcomings identified above byproviding methods for providing a wireless minute overdraft protectionplan.

The overdraft protection plan is the mechanism whereby minutes can beincrementally added (or borrowed from another calling period) to acalling plan when the threshold number of minutes has been exhausted soas to prevent the subscriber from incurring increased overage costs foradditional minutes beyond those allocated under the subscribers callingplan in a particular calling period. In accordance with this overdraftprotection plan, the cost per minute of the added (or borrowed) minutesis less than the cost per minute normally associated with exceeding thethreshold number of minutes.

The wireless minute overdraft protection can be implemented eitherdynamically or manually.

It is an object of the invention to enable a post-paying customer tocontrol the cost of his or here post-paid service plan by being able toadd overdraft minutes to their account to prevent overage minutes frombeing incurred.

In accordance with methods of the present invention, the post-payingcustomer can add overdraft minutes at any time during, or after, theinitial activation of the service plan contract.

One aspect of the invention is to provide a method for adding minutes toa calling plan having a calling plan period. The method includesdetermining whether a threshold number of minutes have been reachedduring the calling plan period; and incrementally adding minutes to thecalling plan when the threshold number of minutes has been reached. Thecost per minute of the added minutes is less than the cost per minutenormally associated with exceeding the threshold number of minutesduring the calling plan period.

Another aspect of the invention is to provide a method for addingminutes to a calling plan having a threshold number of minutes. Themethod includes requesting an additional number of minutes; andincrementally adding minutes to the calling plan based on the requestingstep, wherein the cost per minute of the added minutes is less than thecost per minute normally associated with exceeding the threshold numberof minutes.

Another aspect of the invention is to provide a method for addingminutes to a calling plan. The method includes subscribing to anoverdraft protection plan, and determining whether a threshold number ofminutes have been used. Thereafter, minutes are incrementally added tothe calling plan when the threshold number of minutes has been reached.

The recent trend in the telecommunications industry is for atelecommunication service provider to provide a service in which all ofthe communication devices (such as a mobile phone, a wireline housephone, cable, a facsimile, an SMS pager, etc.) for a single post-payingcustomer are pooled together under a single pooled account service planand billed under a single billing statement. The accounts generallyallocate a predetermined number of monthly minutes for use in wirelessdevices and wireline devices. Accordingly, it is also an object of thisinvention to provide overdraft minutes to those post-paying customerswho have these pooled account service plans. The overdraft minutes canbe used for any of the post-paying customer's various communicationdevices under the pooled account service plan.

These and other objects, features, and/or advantages may accrue fromvarious aspects of embodiments of the present invention, as described inmore detail below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various exemplary embodiments of this invention will be described indetail, wherein like reference numerals refer to identical or similarcomponents or steps, with reference to the following figures, wherein:

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary overdraft protection system for apost-paying customer in accordance with the methods of this invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary dynamic method for providing anoverdraft protection system for a post-paying customer in accordancewith the methods of this invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates another exemplary method for providing a dynamicoverdraft protection system for a post-paying customer wherein theadditional overdraft protection minutes are deducted from a second setof minutes associated with a second calling plan period.

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary manual method for providing an overdraftprotection system for a post-paying customer in accordance with themethods of this invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

In accordance with the methods of this invention, an overdraftprotection plan is provided to post-paying customers for any one of, orall of, their various communication devices. The communication devicescan include wireless and wireline devices, such as, wireless mobilephones, wireline phones, SMS paging devices, MMS data transfer devices,facsimile machines, and any other device capable of transferringinformation using a predetermined monthly minute charge that is nowknown or later developed in accordance with the methods of thisinvention.

Particular exemplary embodiments of the present invention will now bedescribed in greater detail with reference to the figures.

There are at least two types of overdraft protection plans that may beimplemented. The overdraft protection plan may be implemented eitherdynamically, or by manual request.

If the overdraft protection plan is implemented dynamically, the numberof overdraft minutes may be populated to the post-paying customer'saccount automatically when an overdraft protection system determinesthat the post-paying customer has reached the minutes allocated undertheir base service plan. The post-paying customer may be asked toconfirm that she desires to have the overdraft minutes automaticallyadded before they are populated.

However, if the overdraft protection plan is implemented as anon-dynamic system, overdraft minutes are populated to the post-payingcustomers account if the post-paying customer actively seeks out andrequests the additional overdraft minutes. In this manner, theadditional overdraft minutes are manually requested and purchased at thediscretion of the post-paying customer, and are based on her immediatedesire to add new overdraft minutes. The following is a description ofthe dynamic and non-dynamic implementation of the overdraft protectionsystem.

I. Dynamic Population of Overdraft Minutes

In accordance with methods of this invention, a post-paying customeraccount may dynamically add overdraft minutes to prevent incurring highcost overage minutes which may run as high as $0.50 or more per minute.Instead of paying overage rates, post-paying customers may protectthemselves by agreeing to pay a lower rate ahead of time by enrolling inan overdraft protection plan. The enrollment into an overdraftprotection plan may or may not have a fee associated therewith.Enrollment may be accomplished by the post-paying customer establishingan overdraft protection plan with her carrier. In an exemplaryagreement, the post-paying customer agrees to pay a predetermined pricefor any number of overage or additional minutes needed, instead ofpaying the higher cost overage rates per minute under the base serviceplan. Accordingly, the post-paying customer is allowed to flexiblycontrol the cost of her account.

The population of additional overdraft minutes to the post-payingcustomer's base service plan account occurs dynamically under thisoverdraft protection plan. Alternatively, the post-paying customer maybe prompted to verify that she would like the minutes to beautomatically populated to her account. In some instances, it may bemore economically suitable to pay overage minutes that to populate theoverdraft minutes to her account. For example, if there is only one dayleft in the billing cycle before a new allotment or available minutesare populated to the post-paying customer's account, the post-payingcustomer may opt to pay the overage minutes instead of adding apredetermined number of overdraft minutes because she may not be able tosubstantially use the overdraft minutes before the end of the billingcycle, i.e., one day. Charges to the post-paying customer may be made atthe time. For example, changes may be billed when the overdraft minutesare added, or may be billed to the customer's monthly statement.

In particular, a post-paying customer may establish an overdraftprotection plan upon contracting her base service plan for hercommunication device. Alternatively, a post paying customer may enrollin the overdraft protection plan after he has contracted his baseservice plane.

Upon enrollment in to the overdraft protection plan, the post-payingcustomer may select a preference as to the number of overdraft minutesthat she wishes to have automatically added to her account after she hasused the predetermined number of minutes allotted under her base serviceplan.

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary overdraft protection system 1 inaccordance with methods of this invention. The hardware and softwareconnections shown in FIG. 1 are arranged for the population ofadditional overdraft minutes in accordance with both the exemplarydynamic and non-dynamic overdraft protection plans of this invention.

In FIG. 1, a communication network 20 is shown connected to variouswireless and wireline communication devices. The communication network20 may be any type of communication network that is capable oftransmitting information, such as voice, data, short messaging (SMS),multimedia messaging (MMS), facsimiles, and any other type ofinformation that may be transmitted in accordance with methods of thisinvention including a PSTN, a GSM network, TDMA, UMTS, GPRS, and anyother known or later developed network.

The various communication devices may include a mobile station 10, atelephone terminal 30, a facsimile 35, a multimedia messaging device(MMS) 40 and a short messaging device (SMS) 50, and/or any other type ofcommercially available communication device capable of communicatingthrough the communication network 20.

The various communication services provided by each of the communicationdevices 10, 30, 35, 40, 50 may be implemented as separate components orintegrated as a single component. For example, a single communicationdevice may be implemented that incorporates mobile telephone services,multimedia messaging services, short messaging services and facsimileservices. In addition, communication devices 10, 30, 35, 40, 50 may bepooled together under a single communication service provider to providea service in which all of the communication devices (such as a mobilephone, a wireline house phone, a facsimile, an SMS pager, etc.) for asingle post-paying customer are pooled together under a single pooledaccount service plan and billed in a single statement.

The communication network 20 communicates with a billing system server60. In FIG. 1, the billing system server 60 communicates with anoverdraft protection server 70. The overdraft protection system 1 mayalso include a communication system server 90 and a bank system server80 that communicates with, for example, the billing system server 60.The billing system server 60 may be implemented separate from theoverdraft protection system server 70 and the communication systemserver 90, or it may be integrated as a single component incorporatingthose system servers. Any number of arrangements is possible inaccordance with methods of this invention.

The mobile station 10 may be any type of mobile device, such as a mobilephone which communicates via the communications network 20. Thetelephone terminal 30 may be any type of telephone connected to thecommunication network 20, such as a public switched telephone network,the Internet, or via any other communication network, such as a mobilephone network, a private telephone network, a packet-switched network,etc. The MMS 40 and the SMS 50 may also be any type of messaging devicethat communicates with the communication network 20.

The communication system server 90 may be any type of communicationnetwork capable of transmitting information, for example, voice, data,SMS, MMS, and/or any other type of information that may be transmittedin accordance with the methods of this invention.

The billing system server 60 is a billing server that monitors, handlesand processes changes to a post-paying customer's billing information.The post-paying customer's billing information may include, the type ofplan subscribed to by the post-paying customer, and/or any other type ofbilling information. The billing system server 60 coordinates with theoverdraft protection system server 70, the communication system server90 and the bank system server 80 to process and to provide overdraftprotection minutes to a post-paying customer. The billing system server60 may incorporate a billing assistant 65. The billing system server 60is an account server that contains all of the data for identifying thepost-paying customer and data identifying the client and hissubscription device. The billing system server 60 may also includecommunication call consumption counters 67. The counters 67 arerespectively associated with the various communication devices 10, 30,35, 40, 50. Each of the counters 67 keep track of the post-payingcustomer's available minutes by decrementing and incrementing inaccordance with the base service plan subscribed to by the post-payingcustomer and/or other actions applied to the base service plan.

The billing assistant 65 may be implemented as an interface with whichthe post-paying customer communicates to request the overdraftprotection minutes. The billing assistant may be implemented as aperson, as hardware or software, and/or any other medium that is capableof processing the request to add additional overdraft minutes for thepost-paying customer.

Information regarding the post-paying customer's base service planaccount may be interactively transmitted to the post-paying customer bythe billing system server 60 through the billing assistant 65. Thebilling system server 60 may instruct the communication server system 90to send return messages (such as for example, “You have 10 minutesremaining under your current plan, do you want to add 100 overdraftminutes to your account?”) to the post-paying customer in order toassist the post-paying customer in obtaining overdraft protectionminutes. The return message may be translated into various formatsassociated with the various communication devices 10, 30, 35, 40, 50,such as voice, data, SMS, MMS, etc, and/or any other type of format nowknown or later developed.

The overdraft protection server 70 may include a list of account numbersand/or other identifiers which identify a post-paying customer and thecommunication devices 10, 30, 35, 40, 50 that are included as part ofthe overdraft protection plan.

The bank system server 80 is a bank with which the carrier managingvarious customers, and their communication devices 10, 30, 35, 40, 50,has entered into transaction agreements on behalf of its customers. Forexample, the bank system server 80 may be the post-paying customer'spersonal banking account system server from which his or her bill ispaid.

At the time of activation, a particular post-paying base service plan isselected by the post-paying customer. In addition, the post-payingcustomer may also choose to enroll in the overdraft protection plan atany time after activation. The overdraft protection plan may be set upto cover any one of, or all of, the communication devices 10, 30, 35,40, 50. When the post-paying customer enrolls in the overdraftprotection plan, the post-paying customer's information is recorded bythe billing system server 60. The post-paying customer's information isalso logged and stored with the overdraft protection system server 70 asbeing an eligible subscriber for that overdraft protection service. Thepost-paying customer's information may include, for example, thecommunication devices 10, 30, 35, 40, 50 associated with the post-payingcustomer, the base service plan, increments of the number of overdraftminutes to be added, the maximum number of overdraft minutes and/or anyother information in accordance with methods of this invention.

Payment for the purchase of the overdraft protection minutes may be madein accordance with the subscriber's current billing preference or byelectronic funds transfer between the billing system server 60 and thebank system server 80. The post-paying customer could supply her bankinformation to the bank system server 80 beforehand so that thepost-paying customer may be billed immediately, or at a later time. Thepost-paying customer data may be stored with the billing system server60.

The overdraft protection fee may be assessed at various times. Forexample, the overdraft protection fee may be billed to the post-payingcustomers account immediately, or billed at a later date with theirmonthly statement. Alternatively, a separate bill may be generated atthe time that the overdraft minutes are applied to the post-payingcustomers base service plan account. Any number of possible billingvariations is possible in accordance with methods of this invention.

According to methods of this invention, when the post-paying customerreaches a predetermined number of minutes (e.g., 470 minutes), or apredetermined threshold number of minutes are remaining (such as 30minutes) under his agreement, a predetermined number of minutes (such as50 or 100) may be populated to the post-paying customer's account foruse to prevent the post-paying customer from paying the excessiveoverage rates for those minutes used above his allotted 500 under hisagreement. The predetermined number of overdraft minutes to be added,and/or the predetermined threshold number of minutes, may be predefinedby the post-paying customer when she enrolls in the overdraft protectionplan. Alternatively, these values may also be set up in advance by theservice provider.

Once the predetermined threshold number of minutes has been reached, theoverdraft protection plan may automatically populate the post-payingcustomer's remaining minutes with the predetermined number of overdraftminutes according to the overdraft protection plan subscribed to by thepost-paying customer. As a result, the post-paying customer will not becharged excessive overage rates.

A fee established under the overdraft protection plan may be charged forproviding the overdraft protection service.

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary method for providing a dynamic overdraftprotection system for post-paying customers in accordance with methodsof this invention.

In step S100, a control routine begins. The routine continues to stepS200.

In step S200, a call is placed by a post-paying customer to an intendedrecipient. Alternatively, the dynamic overdraft protection system maycontinually monitor the number of minutes available under thepost-paying customer's service plan. When the number of minutesremaining falls below a predetermined threshold limit, the overdraftprotection system may perform the routine process as set forth below.The routine proceeds to step S300.

In step S300, information about the call is transferred to a billingsystem server. The routine continues to step S400.

In step S400, the billing system server determines and verifies the typeof base service plan subscribed to by the post-paying customer. Datainformation such as the number of minutes used and number of minutesremaining in the post-paying customer's service plan are stored andshared for use by the billing system server. The routine proceeds tostep S500.

In step S500, the number of remaining minutes that the post-payingcustomer has available according to their base service plan isdetermined, communicated to and processed by the billing system server.These processes may take place in real time. The routine proceeds tostep S600.

In step S600, the control routine determines whether the post-payingcustomer has reached a predetermined threshold number of minutes left inthe post-paying customer's base service plan. The predeterminedthreshold number of minutes may be, for example, a minimal number ofanytime minutes remaining in a base service plan agreement. If it isdetermined that the threshold number of minutes provided by thepost-paying customer's base service plan has not been reached, then thecontrol routine continues to step S800 and billing as usual takes placein accordance with the predetermined base service plane. Otherwise theroutine proceeds to step S700.

In step S700, the routine verifies whether the post-paying customer hasenrolled in the overdraft protection plan. If the post-paying customerhas not enrolled in the overdraft protection plan, the routine proceedsto step S800. Otherwise, the routine proceeds to step S900.

In step S800, the post-paying customer is billed as usual under the baseservice agreement. That is, once the post-paying customer has exhaustedher remaining available number of minutes under the base service planagreement, the post-paying customer is billed at the higher cost overagerate set forth under the predetermined base service plan, which could beas high as $0.50 per minute or more.

To the contrary, if in step S700 it is determined that the post-payingcustomer has enrolled in the overdraft protection plan, the routineproceeds to step S900.

In step S900, the post-paid customer is queried by the control routineas to whether she wants to add the overdraft minutes. The query may besent to the post-paying customer's communication device as anotification that her remaining available number of minutes is about tobe exhausted. The query may be sent to the post-paying customer'scommunication device in a variety of different modes, for example, bySMS, MMS, and or any other mode for transferring a notification to thepost-paying customer. The post-paying customer may then be asked toelect to have overdraft minutes added.

If the post-paying customer is currently on a call, the overdraftprotection system may place the query to the post-paying customer duringthe current call when the post-paying customer has reached thepredetermined threshold number of minutes such that the post-payingcustomer may be informed, and may make a decision as to whether or notshe would like to add additional overdraft minutes. The interactionbetween the overdraft protection system and the post-paying customer maybe implemented to take place seamlessly without the current caller beinginterrupted. The notification may take place in the form of a tone, anSMS, and MMS, or any other mode for alerting the user of the query.Various modes for replying to the inquiry may be performed by thepost-paying customer. For example, the post-paying customer may reply bypushing a button on the keypad, replying by SMS, MMS and/or any othermode for replying.

Confirmation by the post-paid customer to add the overdraft minutes mayvary depending on various situations. For example, if the post-paidcustomer only has a day or two before the end of his current billingperiod (for example, a couple of days before the end of the month),i.e., a couple of days before the beginning of the new billing period inwhich a new set of minutes will be populated under the post-paidcustomer's base service plan, it may be more favorable for the post-paidcustomer to decline to have the overdraft protection systemautomatically add additional overdraft minutes. Instead, the post-payingcustomer may choose to pay the high cost overage rates for the remainingcouple of days instead of paying for a large allotment of new minutesunder the overdraft protection plan. Paying the high cost overage ratesfor the remaining couple of days at the end of a billing period may beless expensive for the post-paying customer, as opposed to paying forthe large allotment of new minutes (for example 100 minutes) under theoverdraft protection plan.

In the alternative, if the additional overdraft minutes are purchasedand not used during the current billing cycle in which they werepurchased, the minutes may be cancelled, refunded, added over onto thenext month billing cycle, or attributed to the client's base serviceplan in any other manner in accordance with economical billingpractices. For example, CINGULAR WIRELESS ROLLOVER® calling plan allowsa customer to add the unused minutes from one month to the followingmonth's billing cycle.

If in step S900, the post-paid customer declines adding the additionaloverdraft minutes, control routine jumps to step S800 and thepost-paying customer is billed as usual under the base serviceagreement. Otherwise, if the post-paid customer elects to add theadditional overdraft minutes, the control routine continues to stepS1000.

In step S1000, the predetermined number of overdraft minutes are added,or populated, to the post-paying customer's predetermined base serviceplan. The predetermined number of overdraft minutes may be added in anyallotment, such as for example, 50, 75, 100, 200, 500, 1000 or any othernumber of minutes. The overdraft minutes may be applied to one or all ofthe communication devices, such as under a pooled service contractagreement. For example, as mentioned above, the overdraft minutes may beadded to a pooled service plan in which all of the communication devicesshare a bucket of minutes. The control routine then proceeds to stepS1100.

In step S1100, the post-paying customer is charged an overdraftprotection fee and the fee is billed to the post-paying customer'sservice plan account. The overdraft protection fee may be assessed atvarious times. For example, the overdraft protection fee may be appliedto the post-paying customer's account and billed on their monthlystatement. Alternatively, a separate bill may be generated at the timethe overdraft minutes are applied to the post-paying customer's serviceplan account. The control routine then proceeds to step S1200.

In step S1200 the billing system server is updated. The routine thencontinues to step S1300.

In step S1300, the billing system server instructs a communicationsystem server to notify the post-paying customer that the agreedallotment of overdraft minutes has been added to the remaining availableminutes under the post-paying customer's base service plan. Thecommunication system server may inform the post-paying customer in avariety of different ways. For example, notice may be given to thepost-paying customer by voice message, data, SMS messaging MMSmessaging, facsimile, or any other method available in accordance withthe system and methods of this invention. The routine then proceeds tostep S1400.

In step S1400 the routine determines whether the call has ended. If itis determined that the call has ended, the routine proceeds to stepS1500. Otherwise, the routine returns to step S500.

In step S500, the routine again monitors the number of minutes that thepost-paying customer has available in his base service plan andcommunicates that information to and from the billing system server. Theroutine proceeds forward through step S600 to step S1400 as discussedabove.

In step S1500, the billing system server is updated. For example, thenumber of minutes that were used to date, the number of minutes that areleft (including the overdraft minutes added) under the post-payingcustomer's base service plan, etc., are communicated to the billingsystem database and updated therein for future queries according to thisinvention. Although shown at steps S1200 and S1500, the billing systemserver may be updated continuously or at any time during the process.The routine then proceeds to step S1600 and the routine ends.

FIG. 3 illustrates another exemplary method for providing a dynamicoverdraft protection system for a post-paying customer where additionaloverdraft protection minutes are borrowed and deducted from a second setof minutes associated with a second calling plan period.

For example, FIG. 3 includes steps similar to those shown in FIG. 2 withthe addition of steps S920, S940 and S960.

In step S920, the customer is asked to indicate whether she would liketo borrow additional minutes from a second set of minutes associatedwith a second calling plan period instead of having to purchaseadditional overdraft minutes. If the response is no, then the controlroutine continues to step S1000 as described above with respect to FIG.2. However, if the response is yes, then the routine proceeds to stepS940.

In step S940, borrowed overdraft minutes from a future calling periodare added and deducted from the future calling plan. The borrowedoverdraft minutes can be added in a variety of different modes, forexample, incrementally or dynamically. An incremental allotment ofminutes can be added and accounted for as described above with respectto FIG. 2. If the borrowed overdraft minutes are added dynamically, thebilling system server can be implemented to keep track of the customer'sminutes used and added in real time, or close thereto. The routine thenproceeds to step S960.

In step S960, the billing system server instructs the communicationsystem server to notify the post-paying customer that an allotment ofborrowed overdraft minutes has been, or is currently being added. Asmentioned before, the communication system server may inform thepost-paying customer in a variety of different ways. The routine thenproceeds to step S1400 and continues as mentioned above.

Borrowing minutes from a future calling period can also be implementedin accordance with specific manual requests to purchase additionalminutes as mentioned below under section II.

II. Manual Request for Population of Overdraft Minutes

In an alternative embodiment, the methods according to this inventionmay provide a non-dynamic “prepaid” option for the post-paid customer.The overdraft protection plan allows subscribing post-paying customersto specifically request and purchase additional overdraft minutes duringtimes in which the post-paying customer may foresee an increase in callfrequency, for example, contemporaneous with major holidays in whichpost-paying customers may use more minutes than normal, for example, dueto calling family and friends.

When the need arises, a post-paying customer has the option to purchaseadditional overdraft minutes in any number of various bundles, such as50, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 and 1000 minutes, to add to their existingavailable minutes under their base service plan. This allows thepost-paying customer to protect themselves from over usage.

In operation, a user may make a request to purchase the additionaloverdraft minutes, before or during a billing cycle, and add theoverdraft minutes to their existing available minutes. A minimal“processing fee” may be charged. Once the purchase transaction isprocessed, the overdraft minutes are added to the existing availableminutes. If the additional minutes are not used during the billing cyclein which they were purchased, the minutes may be cancelled, refunded, orcarried over onto the next month billing cycle, or attributed to theclient's base service plan in any other manner in accordance witheconomical billing practices.

Various options for purchasing the additional overdraft minutes inaccordance with this invention may be available.

For example, a series of boxes may be placed on a billing statement.Each of the boxes may be associated with instructions, such as topurchase additional overdraft minutes, e.g., 100, 200 or 500 overdraftminutes. Another box may indicate the month or billing cycle in whichthe post-paying customer desires to have the additional overdraftminutes provided to the post-paying customer's base service plan.

A post-paying customer may also call customer service and/or the billingassistant 65, as shown in FIG. 1, and request to purchase additionaloverdraft minutes. The post-paying customer may have the option to payfor the additional overdraft minutes immediately, for example by creditcard, or receive the additional charge attributed to her next bill.

Alternatively, the post-paying customer may log onto a website andpurchase additional overdraft minutes. The website may be owned by thesubscriber's own carrier, or some other third-party owned website. Thethird-party owned website could be for example, EBAY®, AMAZON®, or anyother website capable of providing the additional overdraft minutes forsale. The additional overdraft minutes may also be represented and/orobtained for example, by coupons, vouchers, or other types of writteninstruments. Any mode now known or later developed may be used forpurchasing additional overdraft minutes, such as a post-paying customersending an SMS, an MMS request for more minutes, logging into a WAPserver and/or placing a request for additional minutes from any phone.

Numerous advantages are provided by the overdraft protection planaccording to this invention. For example, the overdraft protection planmay help to reduce delinquent bills because of the foreseeableprotection. Likewise, the “traditional” post-paid customer couldrealize-added security by protecting themselves against inflatedbilling.

In accordance with the methods of this invention, this approach may alsobe applied to various types of services, such as GSM, SMS, MMS and GPRSdata packages, for example, in which heavy business users may purchaseadditional GPRS data bytes and add the minutes to the number of databytes sold in the future GPRS plans.

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary method for providing a non-dynamicoverdraft protection system to post-paying customers in accordance withthe methods of this invention.

In step S2000, a control routine begins. The routine continues to stepS2100,

In step S2100, a request for additional overdraft minutes is initiatedby a post-paying customer to a customer service assistant. The requestmay be made in the form of a telephone call to a customer service numberof the service provider and/or via paper bill or a website. The requestmay also be made over the Internet, by an SMS message, or by any othercommercially available manner for placing a request now known or laterdeveloped. As mentioned before, the customer service assistant may be aperson, or may be implemented as hardware or software capable ofprocessing the request. The routine proceeds to step S2200.

In step, S2200, the customer service assistant verifies the post-payingcustomers billing information via a billing system server. The customerservice assistant may be implemented as part of, or separate from, thebilling system server that processes the request to add overdraftminutes. Verification of billing information may include determining thetype of program that the post-paying customer has enrolled in andverifying whether the post-paying customer has enrolled and is eligiblefor the overdraft protection plan. According to this exemplary method,the post-paying customer does not necessarily have to enroll in theoverdraft protection plan. The customer service assistant may alsoverify that the customer is a post-paying customer as opposed to aprepaid customer. The number of minutes used and/or available for useunder the post-paying customer's current service plan is alsodetermined. The routine proceeds to step S2300.

In step S2300, the billing system server initiates a request to addoverdraft minutes from an overdraft protection system server. Based onthe post-paying customer's request and the base service plan enteredinto by the post-paying customer, the overdraft protection system serverwill allocate a predetermined number of overdraft minutes to bepopulated to the post-paying customer's base service plan. The routineproceeds to step S2400.

In step S2400, the number of minutes used is determined, for example,based on current data collected and information updated by a netcounter. The current number of minutes available is captured andconveyed to the billing system server. The routine then proceeds to stepS2500.

In step S2500, the billing system server processes the request and addsthe predetermined number of overdraft minutes to the number of minutesavailable under the post-paying customer's base service plan. Theroutine proceeds to step S2600.

In step S2600, the billing system server instructs a communicationsystem server to notify the post-paying customer that the agreedallotment of overdraft minutes has been added to the remaining availableminutes under the post-paying customer's base service plan. Thecommunication system server may inform the post-paying customer in avariety of different ways. For example, notice may be given to thepost-paying customer by voice message, data, SMS messaging, MMSmessaging, facsimile, or any other method available in accordance withthe system and methods of this invention. The routine proceeds to stepS2700.

In step S2700, the post-paying customer is billed an overdraftprotection fee for the overdraft minutes added. The overdraft protectionplan fee may be assessed at various times. According to this non-dynamicoverdraft protection system, the post-paying customer may be billedbefore the overdraft minutes are added. As mentioned before, theoverdraft protection plan fee may be applied to the post-payingcustomers account and billed on their monthly statement. Alternatively,a separate bill may be generated at the time that the overdraft minutesare applied to the post-paying customers service plan account. Theroutine proceeds to step S2800 and the routine ends.

One of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the stepsdescribed above in FIGS. 2 and 3 are not necessarily limited to any oneparticular order and may be implemented in any order that may achievethe objects and features described above in accordance with the methodsof this invention. Moreover, the time unit of minutes used to describethe exemplary embodiments may be any unit of measurement associated withthe subscriber's calling plan, including but not limited to hours,seconds, or per call charges, and the term “minutes” as used herein isintended to encompass all such alternatives. Likewise, the term “months”has been used to describe a billing cycle, but the invention may beapplied to any calling plan time period.

While this invention has been described in conjunction with theexemplary embodiments outlined above, it is evident that manyalternatives, modifications and variations will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. Accordingly, the exemplary embodiments of theinvention, as set forth above, are intended to be illustrative, notlimiting. Various changes may be made without departing from the spiritand scope of the invention.

1. A system, comprising: a processor; and a computer-readable storagedevice comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor,cause the processor to perform operations comprising: determiningwhether a communications account is associated with anoverdraft-protection plan; and providing, in response to determiningthat the communications account is associated with theoverdraft-protection plan, a user-inquiry message to determine whetherthe user would like to borrow additional data blocks from a future dataplan period or be charged a predetermined cost per additional data blockfor additional data blocks.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein theoperations further comprise receiving, following providing theuser-inquiry message, a user instruction to add data blocks to a presentdata plan period of the communications account by a mechanism selectedfrom a group consisting of: borrowing additional data blocks from thefuture data plan period; and charging the predetermined cost peradditional data block for additional data blocks.
 3. The system of claim2, wherein the operations further comprise adjusting, in response toreceiving the user instruction, the communications account to addadditional data blocks to the communications account.
 4. The system ofclaim 2, wherein the operations further comprise charging, in responseto receiving the user instruction indicating that the user would like tobe charged the predetermined cost per additional data block foradditional data blocks, a fee corresponding to the predetermined costper additional data block.
 5. The system of claim 4, wherein thepredetermined cost per additional data block is less than a cost perdata block associated with exceeding a predetermined base number of datablocks during a data plan period for the communications account.
 6. Thesystem of claim 2, wherein the predetermined cost per data block is afirst predetermined cost per data block, and the operations furthercomprise: adjusting, in response to receiving the user instruction, thecommunications account to add additional data blocks to thecommunications account, including adjusting the communications accountto add the additional data blocks in first predetermined sizeincrements; and adjusting the communications account to provideadditional data blocks in second predetermined size increments for asecond predetermined cost per data block.
 7. The system of claim 6,wherein data blocks of the communications account are shared amongmultiple communication devices.
 8. The system of claim 6, wherein theoperations of adjusting the communications account to provide additionaldata blocks in the second predetermined size increments for the secondpredetermined cost per data block is performed in response to usage ofthe communications account increasing above a threshold number of datablocks over a predetermined base number of data blocks.
 9. The system ofclaim 8, wherein data blocks of the communications account are sharedamong multiple communication devices.
 10. The system of claim 8, whereinthe communications account is a post-paid account including a pluralityof data plan periods, each data plan period having a predetermined basenumber of data blocks.
 11. A method, comprising: determining, by asystem having a processor, whether a communications account isassociated with an overdraft-protection plan; and providing, by thesystem, in response to determining that the communications account isassociated with the overdraft-protection plan, a user-inquiry message todetermine whether the user would like to borrow additional data blocksfrom a future data plan period or be charged a predetermined cost peradditional data block for additional data blocks.
 12. The method ofclaim 11, further comprising receiving, by the system, followingproviding the user-inquiry message, a user instruction to add datablocks to a present data plan period of the communications account by amechanism selected from a group consisting of: borrowing additional datablocks from the future data plan period; and charging the predeterminedcost per additional data block for additional data blocks.
 13. Themethod of claim 12, further comprising adjusting, by the system, inresponse to receiving the user instruction, the communications accountto add additional data blocks to the communications account.
 14. Themethod of claim 12, further comprising charging, in response toreceiving the user instruction indicating that the user would like to becharged the predetermined cost per additional data block for additionaldata blocks, a fee corresponding to the predetermined cost peradditional data block.
 15. The method of claim 14, wherein thepredetermined cost per additional data block is less than a cost perdata block associated with exceeding a predetermined base number of datablocks during a data plan period for the communications account.
 16. Themethod of claim 12, wherein the predetermined cost per data block is afirst predetermined cost per data block, and the method furthercomprises: adjusting, by the system, in response to receiving the userinstruction, the communications account to add additional data blocks tothe communications account, including adjusting the communicationsaccount to add the additional data blocks in first predetermined sizeincrements; and adjusting, by the system, the communications account toprovide additional data blocks in second predetermined size incrementsfor a second predetermined cost per data block.
 17. The method of claim16, wherein adjusting the communications account to provide additionaldata blocks in the second predetermined size increments for the secondpredetermined cost per data block is performed in response to usage ofthe communications account increasing above a threshold number of datablocks over a predetermined base number of data blocks.
 18. Acomputer-readable storage device comprising instructions that, whenexecuted by a processor, cause the processor to perform operationscomprising: determining whether a communications account is associatedwith an overdraft-protection plan; and providing, in response todetermining that the communications account is associated with theoverdraft-protection plan, a user-inquiry message to determine whetherthe user would like to borrow additional data blocks from a future dataplan period or be charged a predetermined cost per additional data blockfor additional data blocks.
 19. The computer-readable storage device ofclaim 18, wherein the operations further comprise receiving, followingproviding the user-inquiry message, a user instruction to add datablocks to a present data plan period of the communications account by amechanism selected from a group consisting of: borrowing additional datablocks from the future data plan period; and charging the predeterminedcost per additional data block for additional data blocks.
 20. Thecomputer-readable storage device of claim 19, wherein the predeterminedcost per data block is a first predetermined cost per data block, andthe operations further comprise: adjusting, in response to receiving theuser instruction, the communications account to add additional datablocks to the communications account, including adjusting thecommunications account to add the additional data blocks in firstpredetermined size increments; and adjusting the communications accountto provide additional data blocks in second predetermined sizeincrements for a second predetermined cost per data block.